From The Law Offices of Brian A. Raphan, P.C.

geriatric care

Have bedsores reached epidemic proportions yet? To many it seems so — especially in elders that are in hospitals and nursing homes — and they do not have to be incapacitated or totally immobile to be at risk.

Whether or not you or an elder in your family has unfortunately become a victim of a bedsore, pressure ulcer, or decubitus ulcer keep this handy reference guide available. Download it to you computer, cell phone or bookmark it. Because bedsores can happen extremely fast and catch you off guard. They can progress rapidly, even within hours if proper care and medical attention are not given.

Anyone with an elder family member entering a hospital, nursing home or even a skilled nursing facility for a short term stay should read and help prevent these potential life treating wounds from happening to a loved one. They can occur at even the best hospitals with the best doctors. You may not expect malpractice, but it happens. You may not expect neglect but it happens. It happens to tens of thousands of innocent patients.

Lawsuits can yield millions of dollars to the victim and their family.

Understaffing, inadequate training, changes in shifts, or simply a scenario where your loved one in a nursing home may need care but that care is given to others with a more acute immediate need. It’s at these times that the elder is at extreme risk.

You can read more about risk factors, treatment, and lawsuits to be compensated for pain, suffering or loss of life here. Reference Guide>

New Obama-era rules designed to give nursing home residents more control of their care are gradually going into effect. The rules give residents more options regarding meals and visitation as well as make changes to discharge and grievance procedures.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid finalized the rules — the first comprehensive update to nursing home regulations since 1991 — in November 2016. The first group of new rules took effect in November; the rest will be phased in over the next two years.

Here are some of the new rules now in effect:

Visitors. The new rules allow residents to have visitors of the resident’s choosing and at the time the resident wants, meaning the facility cannot impose visiting hours. There are also rules about who must have immediate access to a resident, including a resident’s representative. For more information, click here.

Meals. Nursing homes must make meals and snacks available when residents want to eat, not just at designated meal times.

Roommates. Residents can choose their roommate as long as both parties agree.

Grievances. Each nursing home must designate a grievance official whose job it is to make sure grievances are properly resolved. In addition, residents must be free from the fear of discrimination for filing a grievance. The nursing home also has to put grievance decisions in writing. For more information, click here.

Transfer and Discharge. The new rules require more documentation from a resident’s physician before the nursing home can transfer or discharge a resident based on an inability to meet the resident’s needs. The nursing home also cannot discharge a patient for nonpayment if Medicaid is considering a payment claim. For more information, click here.

CMS also enacted a rule forbidding nursing homes from entering into binding arbitration agreements with residents or their representatives before a dispute arises. However,a nursing home association sued to block the new rule and a U.S. district court has granted an injunction temporarily preventing CMS from implementing it. The Trump Administration is reportedly planning to lift this ban on nursing home arbitration clauses.

In November 2017, rules regarding facility assessment, psychotropic drugs and medication review, and care plans, among others, will go into effect. The final set of regulations covering infection control and ethics programs will take effect in November 2019.

Bedsores are often a sign of neglect and sometimes a sign of abuse.The first thing you should do is speak to a nurse on duty and begin to remedy the situation. Be aware that the nurse may not have a full understanding of these injuries and you will likely need the attention of a wound care specialist and medical doctor. If you have a cell phone take some pictures of the wound for documentation. Bedsores and Pressure Sores, also known as Decubitus Ulcers can progress quickly and can be deadly. They occur when someone is immobile and there is not adequate blood flow. Then the affected tissue dies and an ulcerated sore develops. In a nursing home, hospital or other care facility it is their responsibility to check and turn the patient regularly. There are laws in place that protect patients and you should know that these injuries are not the fault of the patient. The patient is the victim. If a loved one you know is suffering they may have a significant, financially rewarding lawsuit. Read more about this on our website, http://www.RaphanLaw.com.

As an Elder Law firm we see these cases often. Whether malpractice, abuse or neglect it is simply unjust for it to happen to an innocent victim. Do not put off addressing the issue. Call me for a free consultation (212-268-8200, 800-278-2960) or even to just guide you through the process of getting the proper medical and legal attention.

Asking questions is important for any consultation. When it comes to pressure sores and bedsores it’s often helpful to read what others have asked via BedsoreHotline.com

If the patient was at a hospital first and then a nursing home which do we sue?

It always depends on individual and medical circumstances but the possibility exists that both are liable. Often an injury begins in a hospital, may not be reported and/or is overlooked or neglected on intake at the second facility where it may get worse or lead to infection and other medical issues.

Do I have a malpractice case?

A case may be medical malpractice on behalf of a facility or doctor. There may be hospital negligence and nursing home liability as well. In unfortunate and sad circumstances it may be a wrongful death lawsuit, where a family member or loved one may have the right to recover losses. Our team of experts will help determine the best options for for your bedsore or pressure sore, decubitis ulcer lawsuit.

What if the patient is too ill to appear in court?

This is not an issue and often the case with bedsore victims. For bedsore and pressure sore lawsuits there’s a legal team that includes experienced bedsore litigators, and medical professionals that can testify based on patient medical records and treatment or lack of and improper treatment. As well as other expert witnesses that look into hospital procedures, policy and practices and determine if any federal violations were evident or standards of procedure were not met. Medical records and pictures of wounds are used.

How much does it cost to sue?

There is no fee to you unless we win. When we accept a case we put in the resources and hours of our bedsores legal team because we are confident of a successful outcome based on the facts of the case. If we take on your case it’s because we see huge upside financial potential for the victim or family of the victim. We work on contingency—no upfront fee or time billed to you. When you win we get an agreed upon portion of the award.

Will beginning a lawsuit get better care for the victim?

Once a hospital or nursing home knows a bedsore lawsuit is possible, often the care and treatment of the patient improves. This is because now they know they are under scrutiny and may be even further liable legally if not giving the proper care and medical attention after the sores have been documented by family and bedsore lawyers. Additionally, our law firm will let you know the standards of care that is necessary for you or your loved one. We can even help guide you on the best way to discuss issues with the doctor or staff and get the desired results.

I want to sue – does it take long? Does my dad have to appear in court?

Timing of a case varies. With expertise and experience and a hands-on approach we move swiftly. The size of our firm allows us to focus on cases so they don’t get lost in the shuffle. Unlike some other law firms, our legal team of attorneys, paralegals, research assistants, medical experts and more, have the experience and knowledge to avoid time lags. Many times cases are seåttled before even going to court. Of course, the plaintiff has a say in this decision and we do what is best for our client.

Do I need money to sue-what does contingency mean?

You will not need to lay out any money. We handle all of our bedsore and pressure sore negligence or malpractice cases on a contingency fee basis. That means that we only charge a legal fee if we are successful and recover money for you. Our fee is typically 33 1/3% of the net recovery after the costs and disbursements that we advance are deducted. The contingency fee may be even lower depending on the facts of the case and the reason the sores happened. With a free consultation, a bedsore law firm that advances all of the necessary costs, and a contingency fee arrangement, you get our reputable law firm with no out of pocket expenses.

How do I know if I have a good bedsore lawsuit? The nurse said the sores were caused by my father and existed?

Don’t put much credence in the opinion of anyone that isn’t a legal expert. Even a medical professional or doctor doesn’t have the legal knowledge and they or facility administrator may even try to persuade you against a bedsore or pressure sore lawsuit. Such tactics aren’t new. Don’t be a victim twice. Consult with legal professionals when medical ones let you down. Then you can use your best judgement on how to proceed with your lawsuit.

What happens if my case loses-will i have any fees to pay?

Absoultely not. We will not charge you one dime if we lose. No matter how much time or money we invest in your case we only get paid when we win. We do not accept every case offered to us. We use our expertise and team approach for cases of value to the victim and the firm.

It was only after Mariana Cooper, a widow in Seattle, found herself with strained finances that she confessed to her granddaughter that she was afraid she had been bilked out of much of her savings.

Over three years, Ms. Cooper, 86, had written at least a dozen checks totaling more than $217,000 to someone she considered a friend and confidante. But the money was never paid back or used on her behalf, according to court documents, and in early November the woman who took advantage of Ms. Cooper, Janet Bauml, was convicted on nine counts of felony theft. (She faces sentencing on Dec. 11.)

Ms. Cooper, who lost her home and now lives in a retirement community, is one of an estimated five million older American residents annually who are victimized to some extent by a caregiver, friend, family member, lawyer or financial adviser.

With 10,000 people turning 65 every day for the next decade, a growing pool of retirees are susceptible to such exploitation. As many as one in 20 older adults

said they were financially mistreated in the recent past, according to a study financed by the Justice Department.

Traditionally, such exploitation, whether by family, friends or acquaintances, often has been minimized as a private matter, and either dismissed with little or no penalty or handled in civil court.

Even when the sums are large, cases like Ms. Cooper’s are often difficult to prosecute because of their legal complexity and because the exploitation goes unnoticed or continues for long periods. Money seeps out of savings and retirement funds so slowly it draws attention only after it is too late.

Ms. Cooper, for example, wrote her first check, for $3,000, in early 2008, and later gave Ms. Bauml her power of attorney. In early 2012, after Ms. Cooper realized that Ms. Bauml was not going to repay her in time for her to afford a new roof for her house, she told her granddaughter, Amy A. Lecoq, about the checks. She later called the police.

Ms. Bauml maintained that Ms. Cooper gave her money for services she provided as a home organizer or as loans.

Later, testing by a geriatric mental health specialist found that Ms. Cooper had moderate dementia, which showed her judgment had been impaired.

The diagnosis “helped the jury to understand why she would keep signing all these checks to this woman as loans when she was never being paid back,” said Page B. Ulrey, senior deputy prosecutor for King County, Wash., who pressed the case against Ms. Bauml.

The case was challenging in part because Washington State does not have an elder abuse statute, said Ms. Ulrey, who is one of a small but growing number of prosecutors around the country with the specific duty of prosecuting those who take financial advantage of elders, whether it is connected to investments, contracts or other fraud.

As the number of complaints grows, more municipalities are trying to combat such abuse, which is often intertwined with physical or sexual abuse, and emotional neglect.

Some organizations also have set up shelters, modeled on those for victims of domestic abuse. In the Bronx, for example, the Weinberg Center for Elder Abuse Prevention at the Hebrew Home in Riverdale started such a shelter in 2005. Since then, 14 other such shelters have been opened in various long-term care operations around the country to deal with urgent cases of financial abuse.

One such woman, who agreed to talk only if she was not identified by her last name, stayed at Riverdale after she was threatened with eviction. A neighbor discovered that the woman, a 73-year-old widow named Irene, had not paid her rent in six months because relatives living with her had been withdrawing money from her account and leaving her short of funds.

“I had to leave with one small suitcase,” Irene said. “They were abusing me.”

She was later able to move to federally subsidized housing away from the abusive situation.

To help elders in financial and other distress, more municipalities, using federal funds, are training law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and social workers how to spot the sometimes subtle signals that may indicate someone has been swindled.

“We see many cases where someone convinces an older person to give them the power of attorney, and then uses that authority to strip their bank accounts, or take the title of their home,” said Amy Mix, a lawyer at the AARP Legal Counsel for the Elderly, which works with the Adult Protective Services division in the District of Columbia government as well as the city’s police department.

In the most recent fiscal year, 934 cases of abuse were reported in Washington. About one-quarter of those were financial exploitation, according to Sheila Y. Jones, chief of Adult Protective Services. “And they involve millions of dollars,” she said.

But many cases are not counted officially because older people are reluctant to pursue legal remedies against relatives and friends. Louise Pearson, 80, a retired government computer analyst, declined to press charges against a security guard in her building who had befriended her and later obtained $30,000 from her savings.

“There was something about him you just had to take to,” Ms. Pearson said.

When she finally asked Malika Moore, a social worker at Iona Senior Services in Washington, for some assistance with her shaky finances, the social worker realized that the situation was serious.

One clue, she said, was that, “When I opened her refrigerator, it was empty.”

Ms. Moore was able to get Ms. Pearson home-delivered meals, and after the bank confirmed that she was missing savings, help to find a conservator to handle her money. Ms. Pearson, who now lives in a housing complex for the elderly, said, “I get money whenever I need it, and more than I did before.”

In Seattle, Ms. Cooper’s granddaughter expressed determination to educate others on the warning signs of financial abuse. “I wish we had known some of the red flags,” she said.

But even though she’s a trained social worker, it’s not surprising she missed the signs. She was deeply involved in caring for her mother, Ms. Cooper’s daughter, who was fighting cancer and died shortly before the period when her grandmother was writing the checks.

“Our family saw her regularly,” Ms. Lecoq said, “but we just didn’t see indications of what was going on.”

In retrospect, she might have been more suspicious with “my grandmother suddenly having a new friend and a friend who got so close so fast.”

Once Ms. Lecoq and her husband, John, recognized what had happened, they pushed for prosecution. Ms. Ulrey, the prosecutor, said the case required medical tests and search warrants for both the victim’s and the suspect’s financial accounts.

Ms. Cooper was unable to recover her lost money and worries about how long she will be able to pay for her retirement home. “She’s ashamed and embarrassed and feels guilty,” Ms. Lecoq said of her grandmother. “But I tell her: ‘You were a victim of a crime.’”

To help older people, families and friends should be on the lookout for some of the warning signs of financial abuse. These include not being able to cover normal expenses; paying for excessive, unexpected gifts to others; and signing over power of attorney or transferring property to unrelated individuals.

To learn more about protecting the savings of the elderly and helping them avoid being exploited financially, these publications are worth reading:

A U.S. Court of Appeals upholds a district court ruling that granted class certification to a group of disabled nursing home residents who complained of a lack of Medicaid-funded community-based alternatives. In re District of Columbia, (D.C. Cir., No. 14-8001, June 26, 2015).Embed from Getty Images

The plaintiffs, a group of disabled nursing home residents receiving Medicaid-funded long term care, sued the District of Columbia for allegedly violating its obligation, pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act, to provide services to the disabled in the most appropriate, integrated setting. The plaintiffs filed a motion seeking class certification, asserting that they were all similarly situated nursing home residents who wanted to live in the community but were forced to remain institutionalized against their will.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted the motion for class certification, finding that alleged systemic deficiencies, such as the District’s failure to offer sufficient discharge planning or to provide residents with meaningful choices of community-based alternatives to nursing home care, were sufficient bases upon which to certify the class.

The District filed a petition for permission to file an interlocutory appeal of the district court’s ruling certifying the class. The District argued that the lower court committed manifest error by failing to identify policies or practices that were common to all members of the class and that were amenable to class-wide resolution.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit disagrees and upholds the class certification. The court concludes that it was not manifest error for the lower court to find the allegations of systemic deficiencies in the program sufficient to establish a class of plaintiffs.

You’d be surprised how many times we hear the following from clients…”the nursing home said our dad’s skin condition was broken down and poor health led to bedsores”, or some similar version of this. These comments inappropriately lead people to believe they or there loved ones do not have legal rights when it comes to bedsores or pressure sores (decubitus ulcers). Of course they are not the fault of the bedsore victim. Especially when they are in the care of professionals of a hospital, medical or nursing facility. Patients, elders, unhealthy or not do have legal rights–which also includes the right to sue for bedsores. Read more about the Rights of Bedsore Victims below:

The defendants insurance company may ask you for a recorded statement describing the appearance of bedsores and your treatment. Remember you have no obligation to give them such a statement, nor is it wise to do so.

The defendant’s insurance company will ask you for authorizations to obtain your medical records. Let your attorney release your records after he or she has reviewed them. It’s best not to offer information by yourself.

Some insurance companies will offer you money to settle the case before you contact an attorney. In this situation the insurance company knows they will have to pay out money and they hope to settle the claim before you hire an attorney who can negotiate and demand a higher amount. Always consult an attorney if an insurance company is offering you money. By doing so you will in all likelihood increase your net recovery even after taking out the lawyers fee.

Once a bedsore case is settled and the defendant is released, regardless of whether you make a full recovery or not, the money you received cannot be taken away, it is your money…tax free.

If you need surgery, it is important to go forward with that before you settle your pressure sore or bedsore lawsuit.

If you are persuaded by a hospital or nursing home and settle a case on your own, only to find out 6 months later you have more serious conditions than first thought, you have forfeited your rights to recover additional money. That is why it is so important to contact an experienced bedsore attorney before you sign anything.

You are able to sue for and recover a monetary award from new injuries and infections and the aggravation of old ones caused by bedsores or pressure ulcers.

Grades of pressure sores
If a person is bedridden for long enough, the areas of skin constantly in contact with the mattress
or chair will start to discolor. This shows that the skin is in danger of ulcerating.
Pressure sores are graded to four levels, including:
• Grade I – skin discoloration, usually red, blue, purple or black
• Grade II – some skin loss or damage involving the top-most skin layers
• Grade III – necrosis (death) or damage to the skin patch, limited to the skin layers
• Grade IV – necrosis (death) or damage to the skin patch and underlying structures, such as tendon, joint or bone.

BERKELEY — Engineers at UC Berkeley are developing a new type of bandage that does far more than stanch the bleeding from a paper cut or scraped knee.

Thanks to advances in flexible electronics, the researchers, in collaboration with colleagues at UC San Francisco, have created a new “smart bandage” that uses electrical currents to detect early tissue damage from pressure ulcers, or bedsores, before they can be seen by human eyes – and while recovery is still possible.

“We set out to create a type of bandage that could detect bedsores as they are forming, before the damage reaches the surface of the skin,” said Michel Maharbiz, a UC Berkeley associate professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences and head of the smart-bandage project. “We can imagine this being carried by a nurse for spot-checking target areas on a patient, or it could be incorporated into a wound dressing to regularly monitor how it’s healing.”

The researchers exploited the electrical changes that occur when a healthy cell starts dying. They tested the thin, non-invasive bandage on the skin of rats and found that the device was able to detect varying degrees of tissue damage consistently across multiple animals.

The smart bandage is fabricated by printing gold electrodes onto a thin piece of plastic. This flexible sensor uses impedance spectroscopy to detect bedsores that are invisible to the naked eye. (UC Berkeley image)

Tackling a growing health problem

The findings, published today (Tuesday, March 17) in the journal Nature Communications, could provide a major boost to efforts to stem a health problem that affects an estimated 2.5 million U.S. residents at an annual cost of $11 billion.

Pressure ulcers, or bedsores, are injuries that can result after prolonged pressure cuts off adequate blood supply to the skin. Areas that cover bony parts of the body, such as the heels, hips and tailbone, are common sites for bedsores. Patients who are bedridden or otherwise lack mobility are most at risk.

“By the time you see signs of a bedsore on the surface of the skin, it’s usually too late,” said Dr. Michael Harrison, a professor of surgery at UCSF and a co-investigator of the study. “This bandage could provide an easy early-warning system that would allow intervention before the injury is permanent. If you can detect bedsores early on, the solution is easy. Just take the pressure off.”

Bedsores are associated with deadly septic infections, and recent research has shown that odds of a patient dying are 2.8 times higher when they have pressure ulcers. The growing prevalence of diabetes and obesity has increased the risk factors for bedsores.

“The genius of this device is that it’s looking at the electrical properties of the tissue to assess damage. We currently have no other way to do that in clinical practice,” said Harrison. “It’s tackling a big problem that many people have been trying to solve in the last 50 years. As a clinician and someone who has struggled with this clinical problem, this bandage is great.”

Cells as capacitors and resistors

The researchers printed an array of dozens of electrodes onto a thin, flexible film. They discharged a very small current between the electrodes to create a spatial map of the underlying tissue based upon the flow of electricity at different frequencies, a technique called impedance spectroscopy.

Researchers varied the amount of pressure applied to the skin, creating bedsores ranging in severity. The orange hexagon marks where the bandage was placed on the skin, and the dotted blue circle highlights where pressure was applied to the tissue. The “reversible damage” example highlights the sensitivity of the “smart bandage” impedance sensor since the wound is not visible at the surface of the skin. (Schematic courtesy of UC Berkeley)

The researchers pointed out that a cell’s membrane is relatively impermeable when functioning properly, thus acting like an insulator to the cell’s conductive contents and drawing the comparison to a capacitor. As a cell starts to die, the integrity of the cell wall starts to break down, allowing electrical signals to leak through, much like a resistor.

“Our device is a comprehensive demonstration that tissue health in a living organism can be locally mapped using impedance spectroscopy,” said study lead author Sarah Swisher, a Ph.D. candidate in electrical engineering and computer sciences at UC Berkeley.

To mimic a pressure wound, the researchers gently squeezed the bare skin of rats between two magnets. They left the magnets in place for one or three hours while the rats resumed normal activity. The resumption of blood flow after the magnets were removed caused inflammation and oxidative damage that accelerated cell death. The smart bandage was used to collect data once a day for at least three days to track the progress of the wounds.

The smart bandage was able to detect changes in electrical resistance consistent with increased membrane permeability, a mark of a dying cell. Not surprisingly, one hour of pressure produced mild, reversible tissue damage while three hours of pressure produced more serious, permanent injury.

Promising future

“One of the things that makes this work novel is that we took a comprehensive approach to understanding how the technique could be used to observe developing wounds in complex tissue,” said Swisher. “In the past, people have used impedance spectroscopy for cell cultures or relatively simple measurements in tissue. What makes this unique is extending that to detect and extract useful information from wounds developing in the body. That’s a big leap.”

Maharbiz said the outlook for this and other smart bandage research is bright.

“As technology gets more and more miniaturized, and as we learn more and more about the responses the body has to disease and injury, we’re able to build bandages that are very intelligent,” he said. “You can imagine a future where the bandage you or a physician puts on could actually report a lot of interesting information that could be used to improve patient care.”

Other lead researchers on the project include Vivek Subramanian and Ana Claudia Arias, both faculty members in UC Berkeley’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences; and Shuvo Roy, a UCSF professor of bioengineering. Additional co-authors include Amy Liao and Monica Lin, both UC Berkeley Ph.D. students in bioengineering; and Yasser Khan, a UC Berkeley Ph.D. student in electrical engineering and computer sciences, who fabricated the sensor array.

Study co-author Dr. David Young, UCSF professor of surgery, is now heading up a clinical trial of this bandage.

When a patient develops pressure ulcers, it is often a sign of neglect and can even be the result of hospital malpractice, nurse malpractice or nursing home negligence.

Any time a patient is confined to a bed or chair for a period of time and not provided proper and adequate care, the risk of pressure ulcers increases.

The National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel (NPUAP) defines a pressure ulcer as a “localized injury to the skin and/or underlying tissue, usually over a bony prominence, as a result of pressure, or pressure in combination with shear.” Illustrations of the stages of pressure ulcers are shown below:

Sadly, pressure ulcers are the underlying cause of mortality and morbidity for several thousand patients across the country each year. Researchers analyzing the national Medicare Patient Safety Monitoring System (MPSMS) database found that the nationwide incidence rate for hospital-acquired pressure ulcers was 4.5 percent. The five states with the highest incidence rates are New York (5.2%), Missouri (5.3%), New Jersey (5.3%), Massachusetts (5.5%) and Pennsylvania (5.9%).

The federal government, in its first year of a federal initiative to improve patient safety, recently imposed penalties aimed at reducing preventable harm. Five states saw a significant percentage of hospitals being penalized: New York, where 26% of hospitals were penalized by having their Medicare reimbursements cut by 1%; Missouri, 25%; New Jersey, 37%; Massachusetts, 22%; and Pennsylvania, 25%.

In New York State, penalized hospitals included some well-known healthcare facilities, such as Beth Israel Medical Center and New York University Langone Medical Center.

All sedentary patients are vulnerable, but the elderly and patients whose skin condition has been compromised are especially at risk. Pressure ulcers are most common on bony prominences with little protective fat or muscle (such as heels, hips, shoulders, and tail bones), and they develop when patients stay in one position for too long without shifting their weight. The constant pressure against the skin reduces blood flow to contact areas. The skin begins to break down and the tissue dies, possibly in a matter of hours. Friction and shear caused by sliding down in the bed, or being moved improperly from a stretcher to a bed can exacerbate the problem. Pressure ulcers slow a patient’s recovery, can lead to other issues and infection and prolong hospital stays. The total annual cost for treating pressure ulcers in the U.S. is estimated at $11 billion. However, pressure ulcers (also known as bedsores and decubitis ulcers) are preventable.

To prevent pressure ulcers and damage to the skin, recent NPUAP recommendations can be summarized in seven steps:

Because these seven steps are so easy to follow, when a patient develops pressure ulcers, it is often a sign of neglect and can even be the result of hospital malpractice, nurse malpractice or nursing home negligence.

Upon admission to a hospital for another health concern the issues can go unnoticed, allowing further damage to take place in a relatively short time. This also creates liability on the part of the hospital.

In many lawsuits that we handle, the hospital is dealt a bad hand by receiving a patient from a nursing home where a skin breakdown or pressure ulcer has already begun. At times, due to dementia for example, a patient may not be able to express or know how to communicate pain upon entering the hospital. However, this is no excuse for not identifying a high-risk patient and making regular daily assessments.

To be clear, pressure ulcers are not the fault of the patient. The patient is a victim. Medical negligence by a hospital, doctor, nurse, aide or medical technician is unacceptable and may be the cause of pain and suffering, or even result in death. It is simply not acceptable for patients to develop bedsores or pressure ulcers while they are in the care of medical professionals and receiving medical care and treatment at a facility.

There is no doubt that hospitals and staff, from talented skilled doctors, nurses and medical professionals to support staff and administration, do their best to help and treat patients. However, protocols exist in every facility, and perhaps, it is just a matter of every individual being a bit more aware, and caring just a little more, when dealing with the elderly and at-risk patients.

The need to protect your assets is always at hand. Planning for long-term care with an elder law attorney can help protect your assets for the in home spouse and heirs. Medicaid Planning or Life Care Planning helps to ensure that you or your loved one get the best possible long-term care and the highest possible quality of life, whether at home, in an assisted living facility, or in a nursing home. The following article brings this issue to light.

To Collect Debts, Nursing Homes Are Seizing Control Over Patients.

Lillian Palermo tried to prepare for the worst possibilities of aging. An insurance executive with a Ph.D. in psychology and a love of ballroom dancing, she arranged for her power of attorney and health care proxy to go to her husband, Dino, eight years her junior, if she became incapacitated. And in her 80s, she did.

Mr. Palermo, who was the lead singer in a Midtown nightclub in the 1960s when her elegant tango first caught his eye, now regularly rolls his wife’s wheelchair to the piano at the Catholic nursing home in Manhattan where she ended up in 2010 as dementia, falls and surgical complications took their toll. He sings her favorite songs, feeds her home-cooked Italian food, and pays a private aide to be there when he cannot.

But one day last summer, after he disputed nursing home bills that had suddenly doubled Mrs. Palermo’s copays, and complained about inexperienced employees who dropped his wife on the floor, Mr. Palermo was shocked to find a six-page legal document waiting on her bed.

It was a guardianship petition filed by the nursing home, Mary Manning Walsh, asking the court to give a stranger full legal power over Mrs. Palermo, now 90, and complete control of her money.

Few people are aware that a nursing home can take such a step. Guardianship cases are difficult to gain access to and poorly tracked by New York State courts; cases are often closed from public view for confidentiality. But the Palermo case is no aberration. Interviews with veterans of the system and a review of guardianship court data conducted by researchers at Hunter College at the request of The New York Times show the practice has become routine, underscoring the growing power nursing homes wield over residents and families amid changes in the financing of long-term care.

In a random, anonymized sample of 700 guardianship cases filed in Manhattan over a decade, Hunter College researchers found more than 12 percent were brought by nursing homes. Some of these may have been prompted by family feuds, suspected embezzlement or just the absence of relatives to help secure Medicaid coverage. But lawyers and others versed in the guardianship process agree that nursing homes primarily use such petitions as a means of bill collection — a purpose never intended by the Legislature when it enacted the guardianship statute in 1993.

At least one judge has ruled that the tactic by nursing homes is an abuse of the law, but the petitions, even if they are ultimately unsuccessful, force families into costly legal ordeals.

“It’s a strategic move to intimidate,” said Ginalisa Monterroso, who handled patient Medicaid accounts at the Mary Manning Walsh Nursing Home until 2012, and is now chief executive of Medicaid Advisory Group, an elder care counseling business that was representing Mr. Palermo in his billing dispute. “Nursing homes do it just to bring money.”

“It’s so cruel,” she added. “Mr. Palermo loves his wife, he’s there every single day, and they just threw him to the courts.”

Brett D. Nussbaum, a lawyer who represents Mary Manning Walsh and many other nursing homes, said Mr. Palermo’s devotion to his wife was irrelevant to the decision to seek a court-appointed guardian in July, when the billing dispute over his wife’s care reached a stalemate, with an outstanding balance approaching $68,000.

“The Palermo case is no different than any other nursing home bill that they had difficulty collecting,” Mr. Nussbaum said, estimating that he had brought 5,000 guardianship cases himself in 21 years of practice. “When you have families that do not cooperate and an incapacitated person, guardianship is a legitimate means to get the nursing home paid.”

Guardianshiptransfers a person’s legal rights to make some or all decisions to someone appointed by the court — usually a lawyer paid with the ward’s money. It is aimed at protecting people unable to manage their affairs because of incapacity, and who lack effective help without court action. Legally, it can supplant a power of attorney and a health care proxy.